Re: Official meltdown thread

#52

Re: Official meltdown thread

“You could see this coming if you were a coach,” Self said. “When we're energized and moving the ball and everybody's playing with energy, I think we're a real nice team. But when we're not, we get average real quick.”

Pretty much sums it up. Even the highest level athlete becomes an average athlete when they are standing around. Pretty easy to guard a guy who isn't doing anything.

#54

Re: Official meltdown thread

Here's a "meltdown". Decent chance this team would get smoked 25 out of 30 games against the 08 team. Nice thing is besides Dook, there are no other teams I would consider to be better than very good this season. Otherwise, nothing to melt down about. Bad loss last night - as all losses in games we are favored to win can be considered a "bad" loss. This morning the sun rose, the Pope is still Catholic, and I'm still short, bald and ugly. Life goes on. This team wasn't going undefeated. On to the next.

Last edited by Schmuck (Dec 07 2017 7:50 am)

"Dirty Feathers" - tcat 2/7/17

#55

Re: Official meltdown thread

Schmuck wrote:

Here's a "meltdown". Decent chance this team would get smoked 25 out of 30 games against the 08 team. Nice thing is besides Dook, there are no other teams I would consider to be better than very good this season. Otherwise, nothing to melt down about. Bad loss last night - as all losses in games we are favored to win can be considered a "bad" loss. This morning the sun rose, the Pope is still Catholic, and I'm still short, bald and ugly. Life goes on. This team wasn't going undefeated. On to the next.

I think it's dook, then a gap, then Villanova and MSU, then a gap, then everyone else.

We might be the best team in the everyone else category. Which isn't too bad. Hell, there might be a gap between us and the 5th best team in the country right now.

Assuming last night was a one off, I'd take it over what's happened with Arizona or Florida, who were other teams that looked like they might be competing to be FF type teams.

Re: Official meltdown thread

#59

Re: Official meltdown thread

Obviously this loss means nothing in the grand scheme of things. We have a few of these games each year (that's just "college basketball")....what sort of concerned me was that many of our guys seemed content to just roll over and die. There didn't seem to be urgency from the people you would expect (graham svi vick).

I'd like to know why we waited until it was too late to try pressing? I'm guessing because of wanting to avoid foul trouble...or why we didn't switch up our offensive strategy a bit until late? Our shooting percentage was fine, but we were playing too slow, and they were forcing some turnovers...and I know some people hate shooting 3s, but when you've got 4 guards playing 100% of the time you've got to hit more 3s than we did.

We will learn from this I suppose.

Sure hope Kansas City isn't hosting any tournament games this year though.

Re: Official meltdown thread

#64

Re: Official meltdown thread

PhDhawk wrote:

Schmuck wrote:

Here's a "meltdown". Decent chance this team would get smoked 25 out of 30 games against the 08 team. Nice thing is besides Dook, there are no other teams I would consider to be better than very good this season. Otherwise, nothing to melt down about. Bad loss last night - as all losses in games we are favored to win can be considered a "bad" loss. This morning the sun rose, the Pope is still Catholic, and I'm still short, bald and ugly. Life goes on. This team wasn't going undefeated. On to the next.

I think it's dook, then a gap, then Villanova and MSU, then a gap, then everyone else.

We might be the best team in the everyone else category. Which isn't too bad. Hell, there might be a gap between us and the 5th best team in the country right now.

Assuming last night was a one off, I'd take it over what's happened with Arizona or Florida, who were other teams that looked like they might be competing to be FF type teams.

We have a lot of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, especially the way our roster is but unlike any other season when we kinda are what we are, we AREN'T the team we're going to be. Adding a Top 15, Top 25 and Top 35 recruit to the roster midseason is unheard of in the sport so there's really no sense for me to worry about what we look like right now. We sucked last night, we'll probably suck again another night or three this season. Our good can be really good and our bad can be really bad. Same as about 25 other teams.

#65

Re: Official meltdown thread

"He said he wanted to lead like Frank Mason and take on the starring role for the Big 12 king.But can Devonte' Graham handle this?They'll suffer on his bad nights, like his three-point night Wednesday against the Huskies.

Graham has scored 35 points twice this season and collected fewer than 10 points in two separate outings, too. He has now finished three games this season with a clip below 30 percent from the field and five contests under 40 percent. He finished 3-for-14 in a Champions Classic win over Kentucky this season.And there was the 0-for-7 effort in the Elite Eight loss to Oregon last season, along with 2-for-10 outing in a loss to TCU in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals."

#66

Re: Official meltdown thread

"He said he wanted to lead like Frank Mason and take on the starring role for the Big 12 king.But can Devonte' Graham handle this?They'll suffer on his bad nights, like his three-point night Wednesday against the Huskies.

Graham has scored 35 points twice this season and collected fewer than 10 points in two separate outings, too. He has now finished three games this season with a clip below 30 percent from the field and five contests under 40 percent. He finished 3-for-14 in a Champions Classic win over Kentucky this season.And there was the 0-for-7 effort in the Elite Eight loss to Oregon last season, along with 2-for-10 outing in a loss to TCU in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals."

Honestly, I think the answer to the question is NO. I don't think Graham is consistent enough to lead KU through five straight tough games in the NCAA tourney. Maybe that changes as he has more tools available to him as far as teammates but I doubt adding three more inexperienced players makes it EASIER for him to lead us. Who knows, teams make the Final Four all the time who were head scratchers at some point in the season.

Last edited by twocoach (Dec 07 2017 9:55 am)

#67

Re: Official meltdown thread

Fwiw frank couldn't lead us through 5 tough tournament games either.

Graham scores on jumpers almost exclusively. He doesn't score consistently driving to the basket. And really struggles with length. I mean he couldn't even pass the ball inside last night a number of times. He'd just throw it right into the defenders hands who were at the top of the zone. I've never seen so many alley oop passes blocked.

He will bounce back.

#68

Re: Official meltdown thread

I'm not confident when Graham is trying to break pressure dribbling.He keeps the ball unguarded from his body and doesn't control it in traffic.When he's on fire, it's great, because he just needs a little bit of space to hit his circus shots.

#72

Re: Official meltdown thread

pwhittemore wrote:

I'm not confident when Graham is trying to break pressure dribbling.

One of my main concerns with this team. Not just graham, but we don't have guys that can just beat someone off the bounce and get to the rim. Graham is probably the best at it, I was hoping Malik would have some of this in his game, but I haven't seen it. He's got great overall speed, but he's not gonna break you down one on one. And when the 3 isn't falling, and you can't get to the rim in half court offense, its problematic. Last night was magnified because of the 3-2 zone, we won't see that much this season.

#75

Re: Official meltdown thread

Going to be a giant log jam of players at nearly every position next year if this recruiting class adds another piece or 2.

I still think we have a good chance to make the final 4. Not many good teams this year. If we can get some luck to fall our way in how our bracket breaks down we've got as good of a chance as anyone....unless the tournament committee decides to put a bunch of teams who are long and play zone into our region to try to facilitate an upset like they're notorious for doing.